A New Treatment Method for Puberphonia: High Backpressure in LaxVox Therapy

Objective: Puberphonia (mutational falsetto) is a functional problem beyond pubertal period which is seen mostly in males. Treatment of puberphonia can be done by applying pressure externally; by exercises for lowering vertical laryngeal position (humming, gliding to low pitches, and half swallow boom technique) or by surgery (Type III thyroplasty). A new method is presented by Denizoglu et al. using high backpressure during phonation.Methods: 21 male with puberphonia and 25 age-matched healthy male were included in the study. ENT examination, VLS, acoustic (SPL, mean F0, first three formants, jitter%, shimmer%, NHR) and EGG (CQ and CI) analysis were performed, at pretreatment, first and sixth months of treatment. VHI-10 and the GRBAS scales were performed for perceptual voice evaluation. LaxVox Voice Therapy Technique was applied to the patients diagnosed as puberphonia with the doctorVOX Voice Therapy and Vocal Training Device. The tip tuner was adjusted to provide a high backpressure (over 20 cmH2O) to the user. No other methods were used, but high backpressure by doctorVOX. After skill acquisition, therapy was completed by developing the new behaviour.Results and Conclusions: All patients were able to find their chest register in the first two sessions and use their chest register in a normal habitual speaking tone and timbre after two weeks of therapy. All patients showed statistically decrease in VHI-10, GRB, F0, F1, F2, F3, %Jitt, %Shimm, NHR and CI whereas an increase in CQ after treatment (first month). At the 6th month post-treatment, no patient got back to falsetto register; despite VHI-10, %jitt ve NHR values were higher than of control. LaxVox Voice Therapy Technique with high backpressure provided by the doctorVOX device was shown to be an effective treatment of puberphonia.